Thread by @ariehkovler

This paid anti-Ukrain propaganda ad, in Hebrew, just popped up on my Facebook. The cartoon's message is hardly subtle, but let's see what we can find out.

First, the advertiser. It's a nothing Facebook page targeting people based in Israel who've interacted with content like graphic novels and consumer electronics.

The page is running another ad too. Both use the same text:

"Israel should focus all attention on fighting the economic crisis. Supporting the conflicts of others is an unjustified luxury. Every shekel counts"

The ad text does't mention the Nazi stuff.

Now the link. This is where it gets interesting. The URL, cartflower[.]net redirects me to a story on Israeli magazine The Liberal titled "Ukraine is Expensive" and claims Israel's meagre aid to Ukraine is creating a domestic financial crisis.

Or does it?

Looking closer. The URL is theliberal[.]net, but the real publication is theliberal.co.il. The propagandists bought theliberal[.]net, created a single page cloning the real Liberal, and uploaded a fake article in the name of @VibeIsrael CEO Joanna Landau.

So this took a bit of work. They had to buy the fake domain and the cartflower redirect domain, write the fake article in Hebrew, clone the Liberal, set up the Facebook page, commission the original cartoons and buy ads. All to target a tiny amount of humanitarian aid to Ukraine

Given how broken Facebook's ad approval process seems to be (guns, drugs and scams get approved easily now), I wonder how much of this is going on in other language markets.

https://twitter.com/ariehkovler/status/1630573146158800896

@FakeReporter FYI